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A Map for the Missing
An epic, mesmerizing debut novel set against a rapidly changing post-Cultural Revolution China, A Map for the Missing reckons with the costs of pursuing one’s dreams and the lives we leave behind
Tang Yitian has been living in America for almost a decade when he receives an urgent phone call from his mother: Yitian’s father has disappeared from the family’s rural village in China. He walked out of their courtyard two mornings ago, with only a plastic bag tied around his wrist, and no one has seen him since. Though Yitian has been estranged from his father for years, he tells his mother he will come home.
When Yitian returns to the village and attempts to piece together what may have happened, he struggles to navigate the country’s impenetrable bureaucracy as an outsider, and his mother’s evasiveness only deepens the mystery. So he seeks out a childhood friend who may be in a position to help: Tian Hanwen, the only other person who shared Yitian’s desire to pursue a life of knowledge. As a teenager, Hanwen was “sent down” from Shanghai to Yitian’s village as part of China’s rustication campaign. Young and in love, they dreamed of attending university in the city together and poured everything into studying for the newly reinstated college entrance exam. But when events spiraled into tragedy, their paths diverged, and while Yitian made it to Beijing, then to America, Hanwen was left behind, resigned to life as a midlevel bureaucrat’s wealthy housewife.
Reuniting for the first time as adults, Yitian and Hanwen embark on the search for Yitian’s father, all the while grappling with the past—who Yitian’s father really was, and what might have been. Spanning the late 1970s to 1990s and moving effortlessly between rural provinces and grand cities, A Map for the Missing is an epic, deeply felt examination of family and forgiveness, the cost of pursuing one’s dreams, and the meaning of home.
Tang Yitian has been living in America for almost a decade when he receives an urgent phone call from his mother: Yitian’s father has disappeared from the family’s rural village in China. He walked out of their courtyard two mornings ago, with only a plastic bag tied around his wrist, and no one has seen him since. Though Yitian has been estranged from his father for years, he tells his mother he will come home.
When Yitian returns to the village and attempts to piece together what may have happened, he struggles to navigate the country’s impenetrable bureaucracy as an outsider, and his mother’s evasiveness only deepens the mystery. So he seeks out a childhood friend who may be in a position to help: Tian Hanwen, the only other person who shared Yitian’s desire to pursue a life of knowledge. As a teenager, Hanwen was “sent down” from Shanghai to Yitian’s village as part of China’s rustication campaign. Young and in love, they dreamed of attending university in the city together and poured everything into studying for the newly reinstated college entrance exam. But when events spiraled into tragedy, their paths diverged, and while Yitian made it to Beijing, then to America, Hanwen was left behind, resigned to life as a midlevel bureaucrat’s wealthy housewife.
Reuniting for the first time as adults, Yitian and Hanwen embark on the search for Yitian’s father, all the while grappling with the past—who Yitian’s father really was, and what might have been. Spanning the late 1970s to 1990s and moving effortlessly between rural provinces and grand cities, A Map for the Missing is an epic, deeply felt examination of family and forgiveness, the cost of pursuing one’s dreams, and the meaning of home.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published August 9, 2022
358 people are currently reading
26951 people want to read
About the author
Belinda Huijuan Tang
1 book168 followersI am a writer from San Jose, California.
My debut novel, A Map for the Missing, is forthcoming from Penguin Press in August of 2022.
Most recently, I was a Truman Capote Fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Before that, I lived in Beijing and studied at Peking University for two years. In college I thought I would be an economist.
My writing has received the Michener Copernicus Award and a Bread Loaf Work-Study Scholarship.
Currently, I live in Los Angeles.
My debut novel, A Map for the Missing, is forthcoming from Penguin Press in August of 2022.
Most recently, I was a Truman Capote Fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Before that, I lived in Beijing and studied at Peking University for two years. In college I thought I would be an economist.
My writing has received the Michener Copernicus Award and a Bread Loaf Work-Study Scholarship.
Currently, I live in Los Angeles.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 594 reviews
August 22, 2022
Audiobook…..read by Austin Ku
……11 hours and 20 minutes
Belinda Huijuan Tang’s debut novel is deeply readable….
…..and as an audiobook—the kind you listen to voraciously every chance you get. The kind you get lost in.
It’s also the kind of book that — besides being a rather ambitious historical novel — rich-in-detail — it sure feels like a labor of love.
The author encompasses cultural awareness—and cultural sensitivities with the most seamless—beautiful storytelling.
Tang Yitian is a protagonist I cared for right away. (really cared for this beautiful man a lot).
The story begins in Palo Alto, California. It’s late afternoon. Yitian works as a professor in the math department (assumingely at Stanford University)…when he receives a phone call from his mother in China. She is so distraught and hysterical on the phone, it takes a few minutes for Yitian to comprehend what his mother was saying…..
“Your father left home two days ago”. His father has disappeared from their rural village in China.
Yitian’s wife, Molly, booked the plane flight for Yitian.
…..(note) ….I never forgot about Molly, back in Palo Alto in their modest apartment, while Yitian was in China.
Once Yitian returned to his childhood village—it became clear quickly that ….
…..1. there was his father’s disappearance to deal with….(complicated and mysterious)…
and
…..2. the presence of his mother: (her solidity, her beliefs, stubbornness, rigidity).
Besides searching for his father — we learn about the turbulent years Yitian experienced growing up. Memories resurfaced of how harsh — downright abusive — Yitian’s father treated him for being a ‘big shot scholar’ instead of working in the field in their village. It was no wonder father and son had not had any connection in years.
Other memories surface: (childhood, teen, and young adult years)
…..1.Grandfather’s close affection — stories — and lifetime influence on Yitian >> but friction between Yitian’s father and his Grandfather (basically - father/son and father/son abrasive relationships)…
…..2. An old girlfriend, Tian Hanwen, surfaces (their passion for education, math, books, and each other)
…..3. The death of Yitian’s older brother (fathers favorite)
…..4. Historical turmoil in China during the Revolution and aftermath.
It’s not easy to write this review—because nothing I’ve said - yet- (although factually truthful) — TOUCHES THE FEELINGS…..
…..there is a lot going on — educational without being textbook scholarly dry …
it’s wrapped in love, loss, home, identity, family love….and forgiveness……
It’s both a tale of serious ‘social/political’ history and serious ‘intimate/family’ history…..but it’s also much more (touching all our senses emotionally, cerebrally, and privately)….
The weaving of past and present day storytelling unfolds with an amazingly natural ease. Themes covered are loss, death, a little romance complicated intrigue, cultural traditions, exile, betrayal, amends….
I can’t recommend this enjoyable book more ….
It’s compulsively — READER STIMULATING…..with beautiful
s m o o t h captivating and compelling mesmerizing prose.
VERY ENGROSSING!!! EMOTIONALLY PERSONALLY FELT!!!
…..Tang Yitian is a sympathetic character that will stay with me — and many readers a long time after the book ends.
SIGN ME TO READ Belinda Huijuan Tang’s next book!
……11 hours and 20 minutes
Belinda Huijuan Tang’s debut novel is deeply readable….
…..and as an audiobook—the kind you listen to voraciously every chance you get. The kind you get lost in.
It’s also the kind of book that — besides being a rather ambitious historical novel — rich-in-detail — it sure feels like a labor of love.
The author encompasses cultural awareness—and cultural sensitivities with the most seamless—beautiful storytelling.
Tang Yitian is a protagonist I cared for right away. (really cared for this beautiful man a lot).
The story begins in Palo Alto, California. It’s late afternoon. Yitian works as a professor in the math department (assumingely at Stanford University)…when he receives a phone call from his mother in China. She is so distraught and hysterical on the phone, it takes a few minutes for Yitian to comprehend what his mother was saying…..
“Your father left home two days ago”. His father has disappeared from their rural village in China.
Yitian’s wife, Molly, booked the plane flight for Yitian.
…..(note) ….I never forgot about Molly, back in Palo Alto in their modest apartment, while Yitian was in China.
Once Yitian returned to his childhood village—it became clear quickly that ….
…..1. there was his father’s disappearance to deal with….(complicated and mysterious)…
and
…..2. the presence of his mother: (her solidity, her beliefs, stubbornness, rigidity).
Besides searching for his father — we learn about the turbulent years Yitian experienced growing up. Memories resurfaced of how harsh — downright abusive — Yitian’s father treated him for being a ‘big shot scholar’ instead of working in the field in their village. It was no wonder father and son had not had any connection in years.
Other memories surface: (childhood, teen, and young adult years)
…..1.Grandfather’s close affection — stories — and lifetime influence on Yitian >> but friction between Yitian’s father and his Grandfather (basically - father/son and father/son abrasive relationships)…
…..2. An old girlfriend, Tian Hanwen, surfaces (their passion for education, math, books, and each other)
…..3. The death of Yitian’s older brother (fathers favorite)
…..4. Historical turmoil in China during the Revolution and aftermath.
It’s not easy to write this review—because nothing I’ve said - yet- (although factually truthful) — TOUCHES THE FEELINGS…..
…..there is a lot going on — educational without being textbook scholarly dry …
it’s wrapped in love, loss, home, identity, family love….and forgiveness……
It’s both a tale of serious ‘social/political’ history and serious ‘intimate/family’ history…..but it’s also much more (touching all our senses emotionally, cerebrally, and privately)….
The weaving of past and present day storytelling unfolds with an amazingly natural ease. Themes covered are loss, death, a little romance complicated intrigue, cultural traditions, exile, betrayal, amends….
I can’t recommend this enjoyable book more ….
It’s compulsively — READER STIMULATING…..with beautiful
s m o o t h captivating and compelling mesmerizing prose.
VERY ENGROSSING!!! EMOTIONALLY PERSONALLY FELT!!!
…..Tang Yitian is a sympathetic character that will stay with me — and many readers a long time after the book ends.
SIGN ME TO READ Belinda Huijuan Tang’s next book!
September 10, 2022
A Map for the Missing follows Tang Yitian, a math professor living in America for almost a decade who receives an urgent phone call from his mother, telling Yitian that his father has disappeared. Yitian travels back to the rural village in China where he grew up to search for his father. There, he reaches out to his childhood friend Tian Hanwen, a woman who once shared his desire for an educated life. Through this journey Yitian grapples with his past, like the lack of acceptance he received from his father and why he and Hanwen fell out of touch.
I liked this book and found its focus on the gaokao, China’s newly reinstated national college entrance exam in the 1970s, particularly compelling. Belinda Huijuan Tang does a nice job of portraying how class and gender shape who gets access to education and therefore more stable and secure lives. She also highlights how our parents’ and grandparents’ struggles affect our own, consciously and unconsciously.
In the middle of reading this book I leaned toward giving it a three-star rating – at times the writing felt a little “tell” and not “show” and the emotionality of the book almost one-note in how depressing it was. The depressing tone is fair given that the events in the book are depressing, though I wanted a bit more variety. However, I enjoyed how Tang ended the book by subtlety yet explicitly showing Yitian and Hanwen’s growth, in their actions and in their realizations about themselves and their families. Overall, a solid read I would recommend to those interested in the book’s synopsis.
I liked this book and found its focus on the gaokao, China’s newly reinstated national college entrance exam in the 1970s, particularly compelling. Belinda Huijuan Tang does a nice job of portraying how class and gender shape who gets access to education and therefore more stable and secure lives. She also highlights how our parents’ and grandparents’ struggles affect our own, consciously and unconsciously.
In the middle of reading this book I leaned toward giving it a three-star rating – at times the writing felt a little “tell” and not “show” and the emotionality of the book almost one-note in how depressing it was. The depressing tone is fair given that the events in the book are depressing, though I wanted a bit more variety. However, I enjoyed how Tang ended the book by subtlety yet explicitly showing Yitian and Hanwen’s growth, in their actions and in their realizations about themselves and their families. Overall, a solid read I would recommend to those interested in the book’s synopsis.
August 22, 2022
4.5 stars
Belinda Huijuan Tang’s debut novel A Map for the Missing is a moving story about family, forgiveness, identity, loss, and the weight of cultural expectations versus personal ambition.
When we first meet Tang Yitian in 1993, he is a mathematics professor at an American university in California, where he has lived with his wife Mali for nearly a decade. One day, he receives a phone call from his mother, who still lives in their ancestral family village in China, informing him that his father has mysteriously disappeared. Yitian is estranged from his father and as a result, he has not set foot in the village in 15 years — yet Yitian agrees to return to his child home home to help look for him. When he arrives in China however, he feels like a fish out of water and has no choice but to seek out the help of his childhood friend (and his first love), Tian Hanwen, who is now a housewife to a mid-level bureaucrat. Together, they begin the search for Yitian’s father, but along the way, they end up discovering truths about themselves and their families that change long-held perspectives about their lives. Through a narrative that switches back and forth between the 1970s and 1990s, we eventually learn the characters’ backstories and the link between their pasts that impact their lives in present day.
It’s been awhile since I’ve come across a book that resonated with me on so many levels. Throughout the story, both Yitian and Hanwen struggle between pursuing their dreams and forging their own path in life versus following cultural expectations of filial piety that require them to fulfill their obligations to their families. This is a struggle that I’m intimately familiar with, which is why reading this book was quite an emotional experience for me. Reading about Yitian’s feelings of inadequacy in not being able to reconcile his ambitions and the trajectory of his life with his responsibilities toward his parents (regardless of how they treated him), I found myself nodding along in understanding and sympathy. I was also able to relate to his experience returning to his hometown after so many years away, and the unexpected culture shock that made it difficult for him to navigate a world that used to be familiar to him. This was actually one area that I felt the author did an especially great job with: conveying the unending struggle that immigrants like us have with reconciling the meaning of “home” and feeling like a “perpetual foreigner” in both worlds.
There’s actually quite a bit to unpack with this novel — the themes of loss and forgiveness, reconciling past and present lives with future, social mores versus personal values, the price of ambition and trying to forge a better life for oneself versus the obligations of family and cultural inheritance — it’s impossible to cover all aspects in such a short review. With that said, I appreciate Tang’s realistic yet deeply nuanced portrayal that quite honestly continues to give me much food for thought even now, several days after having finished the book.
This was an absolutely worthwhile read — one I definitely recommend. Of course, given the cultural elements, the experience reading this will probably be different for each person, but with the variety of themes it covers, I don’t think it will be difficult to find something relatable in the story.
Received ARC from Penguin Press via NetGalley.
May 3, 2022
“It was amazing…that an unchanging property of an object wasn’t only what was there, but also what wasn’t. It meant that if you could define what was absent, create a map for the missing, that was also a way of knowing a thing.”
When Tang Yitian, a professor of mathematics in America, returns to his Chinese rural village to find his missing father, he must contend with the pieces of his life that have also remained maddingly obscured through the years.
In creating a map of what is missing, debut writer Belinda Huijan Tang has written a spellbinding book about memory and place and familial duty and finding one’s own path when the going isn’t easy. This is an astoundingly good book and I envy anyone who has yet to discover it.
The author creates a world where the only ticket out of a confined and monotonous rural existence is the coveted gaokao – an exam that only a very small percentage of Chinese pass. Yitian, a country boy, has very little chance of passing while Hanwen, a sent-down Shanghai girl (a girl who is placed in the country’s rustication campaign after her mother fell out of favor with the Cultural Revolution) is far more likely to earn her escape route to a prized Chinese university.
After the results are in, it is years before the two of them see each other again. As their trajectories intersect once more, the missing pieces becoming more glaring. We know that Yitian is estranged from his father – but why? What has happened to Hanwen in the interval? How do our past histories and memories converge with our current histories and realities and can we ever really go home again? At the end of the day, how do we reach forgiveness and open ourselves to receiving other’s gifts?
Along the way, we gain exposure to the ancestral bonds that bind us at the same time that our future casts a narrow shining light. We learn about the post-Cultural Revolution in China, the unimaginable stress of passing the gaokao, the deeply-ingrained mores and values of Chinese life, and the bittersweetness of imaging how life could have been different.
This is a wonderful novel, filled with humanity, rife with meaning, and deeply felt. It kept me enraptured from first page to last and will very likely make my personal Top Ten of 2022. I am indebted to Penguin Press for the privilege of being an early reader in exchange for an honest review.
April 3, 2022
Precisely, exquisitely drawn; tender and specific. I kept thinking about my dad as I read – I want him to read it. A story about longing for what's lost and can't be recovered.
June 22, 2022
[4.5/5 stars]
Tang Yitian is a professor of mathematics who has been living in America for almost a decade. When he receives a call from his mother telling that his father has disappeared, he decides to return to the rural village in China, where his parents live, after fifteen years. In China, he grapples with the bureaucracy as an outsider, has a complicated relationship with his mother and encounters his childhood friend Tian Hanwen, who suffered from the consequence of Cultural Revolution.
Spanning from late 1970s to 1990s and set against post-Cultural Revolution China, this novel evoked many emotions and I was thoroughly absorbed. Despite the messy relationship between Yitian and his father, there is an unreasonable tenderness about his father's memories that made me think of my own. Reunited for the first time as adults, I was unconsciously moved by Yitian and Hanwen's connection, which felt more than fate. Tang uses gao kao (高考) – an exam that only a very small percentage of Chinese pass - to reveal the costs of pursuing one's dream and what we are forced to leave behind (similar to gao kao, in Brazil we also have this difficult one exam per year when you try to get into a university. And these passages reminded me of my old days' struggles).
What I loved most is how carefully the story unfolds - from Yitian's desire to fill the absences in his memory about family history to a way of wishing for the past back. Tang delivers in a sensitive way how one person can depend on the other for the sense of living. With neat writing and balanced pacing, I was also immersed in the character study often offered in the narrative. My small critique is that I wasn't entirely convinced by Yitian mother's motivation to lie, but this fact didn’t take away my overall enjoyment and reading experience.
A MAP FOR THE MISSING is a beautiful story about family and forgiveness, loss and mental health, and the meaning of home. A deeply felt debut novel that will definitely make into my top 2022.
Tang Yitian is a professor of mathematics who has been living in America for almost a decade. When he receives a call from his mother telling that his father has disappeared, he decides to return to the rural village in China, where his parents live, after fifteen years. In China, he grapples with the bureaucracy as an outsider, has a complicated relationship with his mother and encounters his childhood friend Tian Hanwen, who suffered from the consequence of Cultural Revolution.
Spanning from late 1970s to 1990s and set against post-Cultural Revolution China, this novel evoked many emotions and I was thoroughly absorbed. Despite the messy relationship between Yitian and his father, there is an unreasonable tenderness about his father's memories that made me think of my own. Reunited for the first time as adults, I was unconsciously moved by Yitian and Hanwen's connection, which felt more than fate. Tang uses gao kao (高考) – an exam that only a very small percentage of Chinese pass - to reveal the costs of pursuing one's dream and what we are forced to leave behind (similar to gao kao, in Brazil we also have this difficult one exam per year when you try to get into a university. And these passages reminded me of my old days' struggles).
What I loved most is how carefully the story unfolds - from Yitian's desire to fill the absences in his memory about family history to a way of wishing for the past back. Tang delivers in a sensitive way how one person can depend on the other for the sense of living. With neat writing and balanced pacing, I was also immersed in the character study often offered in the narrative. My small critique is that I wasn't entirely convinced by Yitian mother's motivation to lie, but this fact didn’t take away my overall enjoyment and reading experience.
A MAP FOR THE MISSING is a beautiful story about family and forgiveness, loss and mental health, and the meaning of home. A deeply felt debut novel that will definitely make into my top 2022.
July 5, 2022
DNF at 30%.
A Map for the Missing follows one man's journey to find his father. On the way, he learns more about the secrets of his family and his home country.
I was really excited to read this, as I was hopeful that it would be a really riveting read. Unfortunately, I think the fact is it just isn't for me. I didn't really feel invested (or even interested) in the characters, and eventually I stopped reading it because I realized I didn't really care what happened in the end. This isn't a glaring fault of the author - it's clear that Tang is a good writer. The prose is quiet, though, and I felt like I couldn't really get a grasp on the voice or the characters as a result.
Thank you to Penguin Press and NetGalley for providing a copy for review.
A Map for the Missing follows one man's journey to find his father. On the way, he learns more about the secrets of his family and his home country.
I was really excited to read this, as I was hopeful that it would be a really riveting read. Unfortunately, I think the fact is it just isn't for me. I didn't really feel invested (or even interested) in the characters, and eventually I stopped reading it because I realized I didn't really care what happened in the end. This isn't a glaring fault of the author - it's clear that Tang is a good writer. The prose is quiet, though, and I felt like I couldn't really get a grasp on the voice or the characters as a result.
Thank you to Penguin Press and NetGalley for providing a copy for review.
August 29, 2022
"It was amazing...that an unchanging property of an object wasn't only what was there, but also what wasn't. It meant that if you could define what was absent, create a map for the missing, that was also a way of knowing a thing."
This elegiac story captures rural China during the Cultural Revolution (circa the 1970s) and continues on through the early 1990s in an ancient rural village of the Anhui province and also America. The narrative weaves the tale of two families, specifically the young first love between a Chinese couple, Yitian and Hanwen, who hope for better things than farming or labor work. The epochal story alternates between time periods (mostly) from the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and paints a vast but also confined landscape, and paints domestic dynamics that stem from a provincial upbringing. MAP is a sober tale depicting how cultural ignorance can destroy a family’s devotion to each other, from generation to generation. During the 1990s, Tang Yitian wants to put the ghosts of the past to rest, and perhaps turn regret into redemption.
I don’t want to give spoilers, so I will just say that, after closing the book and reflecting on the themes and events, I felt sadness that such a simple, treatable human condition can rip apart the seams of family intimacy. Belinda Huijuan Tang gave a powerful portrait of both the ache and myopia resulting from lack of understanding, how knowledge deficits tore through love and erected walls between fathers and sons. Moreover, Chairman Mao’s rustication program of displacing people from Shanghai and other big cities to toil in rural areas added to the lack of agency that people felt at the time.
Hanwen was one of those girls that came from Shanghai. Like Yitian (whose village she was sent to), she yearned for a higher education and successful job. Yitian and Hanwen met fortuitously while studying in the same secret place. They realized a spark of friendship together, and continued to meet up and study, reading and writing and discovering their feelings for one another. Both aimed to take the “gaokao,” a test not unlike the SAT tests in America, with ambitions to score high and go to university.
We know from the opening pages that Yitian, in 1993, is a professor at a prestigious university in the U.S., married to a woman named Mali. His estranged father has gone missing from the Tang village that Yitian grew up in, and his mother begs him to come home to help find him. He hasn’t been home in a decade, and now has to face what he left behind. The title is apropos of the early plot details, but readers will also be piqued by the evolving narrative, which demonstrates the various ways that the title fits elegantly with the story.
What else is missing, besides Yitian’s father? What tragedies broke up this family, and what happened to Hanwen’s dreams of success? How does history and ignorance play its part on familial bonds? Can we forgive what we may have destroyed? How do we emerge from buried tragedies?
I frequently wanted to yank Yitian toward his past, back to the yawning future, to face and unlock his suppressed fears. It’s apparent that Yitian has difficulty living in the moment. Bliss remains at arm’s length, and his damaged spirit suffers from too much psychic damage control. He lacks the nascent spark that originated with his grandfather, who taught him the joy of reading and passion for history. The blessing of family has been replaced by the burden of sadness. But now, after all these years, Yitian is forced out of his tedium and dull comfort zone. He’s compelled to contact Hanwen to help him find his missing father. Seeing her again unearths the ghosts and shadows of his youth; this time, he cannot run away from his past, however turbulent and oppressive.
Tang delivers a beautiful, aching story, and I’m impressed that this is her debut novel! Just a few complaints. The passive or conditional tense of the prose turned turbid at times. It figuratively—but also literarily--signified Yitian’s irresolute nature, which I appreciate. However, it also flattened my reading experience periodically, causing me to wander or grow restless on the page. It took me a while to feel liftoff.
The plot turns were slow and ultimately predictable, but the power of the theme, of what damaged this family, truly made me gasp at the end. It would be a spoiler to reveal this nugget, which is the thread that connects the generations. I am a psychiatric nurse, and often work with children possessing certain challenges. Smart people can be left behind due to small offsets or differences, but a savvy adult can intervene and help them turn it around. I’ll leave it to the reader to discover the gaps in these generations, the missing pieces of the map.
Thank you to Penguin Press and netgalley for offering me a digital copy prior to publishing. However, I ultimately waited util publishing date so I could read it in my preferred “language”---dead trees---the physicality of a book!
This elegiac story captures rural China during the Cultural Revolution (circa the 1970s) and continues on through the early 1990s in an ancient rural village of the Anhui province and also America. The narrative weaves the tale of two families, specifically the young first love between a Chinese couple, Yitian and Hanwen, who hope for better things than farming or labor work. The epochal story alternates between time periods (mostly) from the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and paints a vast but also confined landscape, and paints domestic dynamics that stem from a provincial upbringing. MAP is a sober tale depicting how cultural ignorance can destroy a family’s devotion to each other, from generation to generation. During the 1990s, Tang Yitian wants to put the ghosts of the past to rest, and perhaps turn regret into redemption.
I don’t want to give spoilers, so I will just say that, after closing the book and reflecting on the themes and events, I felt sadness that such a simple, treatable human condition can rip apart the seams of family intimacy. Belinda Huijuan Tang gave a powerful portrait of both the ache and myopia resulting from lack of understanding, how knowledge deficits tore through love and erected walls between fathers and sons. Moreover, Chairman Mao’s rustication program of displacing people from Shanghai and other big cities to toil in rural areas added to the lack of agency that people felt at the time.
Hanwen was one of those girls that came from Shanghai. Like Yitian (whose village she was sent to), she yearned for a higher education and successful job. Yitian and Hanwen met fortuitously while studying in the same secret place. They realized a spark of friendship together, and continued to meet up and study, reading and writing and discovering their feelings for one another. Both aimed to take the “gaokao,” a test not unlike the SAT tests in America, with ambitions to score high and go to university.
We know from the opening pages that Yitian, in 1993, is a professor at a prestigious university in the U.S., married to a woman named Mali. His estranged father has gone missing from the Tang village that Yitian grew up in, and his mother begs him to come home to help find him. He hasn’t been home in a decade, and now has to face what he left behind. The title is apropos of the early plot details, but readers will also be piqued by the evolving narrative, which demonstrates the various ways that the title fits elegantly with the story.
What else is missing, besides Yitian’s father? What tragedies broke up this family, and what happened to Hanwen’s dreams of success? How does history and ignorance play its part on familial bonds? Can we forgive what we may have destroyed? How do we emerge from buried tragedies?
I frequently wanted to yank Yitian toward his past, back to the yawning future, to face and unlock his suppressed fears. It’s apparent that Yitian has difficulty living in the moment. Bliss remains at arm’s length, and his damaged spirit suffers from too much psychic damage control. He lacks the nascent spark that originated with his grandfather, who taught him the joy of reading and passion for history. The blessing of family has been replaced by the burden of sadness. But now, after all these years, Yitian is forced out of his tedium and dull comfort zone. He’s compelled to contact Hanwen to help him find his missing father. Seeing her again unearths the ghosts and shadows of his youth; this time, he cannot run away from his past, however turbulent and oppressive.
Tang delivers a beautiful, aching story, and I’m impressed that this is her debut novel! Just a few complaints. The passive or conditional tense of the prose turned turbid at times. It figuratively—but also literarily--signified Yitian’s irresolute nature, which I appreciate. However, it also flattened my reading experience periodically, causing me to wander or grow restless on the page. It took me a while to feel liftoff.
The plot turns were slow and ultimately predictable, but the power of the theme, of what damaged this family, truly made me gasp at the end. It would be a spoiler to reveal this nugget, which is the thread that connects the generations. I am a psychiatric nurse, and often work with children possessing certain challenges. Smart people can be left behind due to small offsets or differences, but a savvy adult can intervene and help them turn it around. I’ll leave it to the reader to discover the gaps in these generations, the missing pieces of the map.
Thank you to Penguin Press and netgalley for offering me a digital copy prior to publishing. However, I ultimately waited util publishing date so I could read it in my preferred “language”---dead trees---the physicality of a book!
April 15, 2023
A story of transformation, reconciliation, building bridges with versions of the past which create grief without context and opportunity to find that “map for the missing”. It is 1993. Working as a professor in Palo Alto, Tang Yitian receives a phone call from his distraught mother in China: his father has been missing for two days. Yitian has not been back to China since he left 15 years earlier with his wife Mali. Mali immediately makes all the plans for him to return- Yitian is burdened by the years of his estrangement from his abusive father, the fears for his family’s well-being and the weight of arguments, plans unfulfilled stemming as far back as his childhood.
World War II, Mao and the Cultural Revolution, the “sent-down youth” - a huge country altered in its government and personality- Yitian’s village and that of a new friend, Tian Hanwen are juxtaposed in time shifts; the landscape of change in the country itself frames the plot as Yitian seeks his father. China is no longer a country of intimate villages; money speaks.
The novel seamlessly interweaves history with the stories of Yitian’s turbulent beginnings, his mother, the first love Hanwen and Yitian’s insight.
Quiet, engrossing, readable.
World War II, Mao and the Cultural Revolution, the “sent-down youth” - a huge country altered in its government and personality- Yitian’s village and that of a new friend, Tian Hanwen are juxtaposed in time shifts; the landscape of change in the country itself frames the plot as Yitian seeks his father. China is no longer a country of intimate villages; money speaks.
The novel seamlessly interweaves history with the stories of Yitian’s turbulent beginnings, his mother, the first love Hanwen and Yitian’s insight.
Quiet, engrossing, readable.
August 27, 2022
3.5
The story has potential but I found it disjointed at times.
The story has potential but I found it disjointed at times.
September 11, 2022
This was a very satisfying read. The writing has a beautiful quality: subtle and sweeping. And the storycrafting is careful and contributes well to both an overall lush feel and a pacing/momentum that grips one's attention. I'd readily recommend this title and read other works from this author.
Tang may be a debut author but this title does not read like a debut book. The writing is confident and strong. I felt well cared for as a reader. (And this came into question at times when various Romanized Chinese words occurred or Chinese characters appear: both with no translation and only opaque contextual clues. But I applaud such use of non-English words and non-Romanized script. It's a simple but profound way to make a point: it may be illegible to some but it is so. And it de-centers the Western gaze in a deep way. I think it takes a very secure and self-assured writer to do this.)
I note that the book depicted a very real bias (in PRC and in Asia in general) against people from the countryside or the village. And then we see how the country police chief presses for a bribe and how country people line up to visit Yitian when he first returns to his parents' home. These elements are accurately depicted by Tang and, for better or worse, explain why some of those biases are in place. There is also a prevalent class bias in this story. Much of the biases is embedded in the culture and belief systems, like Confucianism as well as, ironically, in Maoism. (Commentary: when I see references to "stop Asian hate" in the US, I often think about all the ways that Asians hate and some of the worst kind takes place in intragroup contexts.)
Tang discloses many truisms, some were painful or embarrassing to see in print. Her reveal is not cruel but matter of fact. I respect her credibility and truthfulness. Credibility? She has intimate knowledge and straddles both a PRC insider's view and an American perspective/sensibilities. (In one scene, she delicately depicts the distance and differences between a Taiwanese immigrant colleague and Yitian, an immigrant from PRC. They only speak to each other in English and any pretense of being racial brethen is awkwardly avoided.)
One more word about "credibility" -- while Tang does a lot of explaining in this book, it didn't feel like explaining (y'all know how I detest explaining). I tried to figure out why the various explanations felt organic but I couldn't discern how Tang managed to do so in such a smooth and unintrusive manner.
(As an aside, I'm not sure how Yitian's parents could have two sons during PRC's one-child policy/law. But Yishou, the older brother, plays an important role in the family dynamics/drama.)
A few quotes:
(In PRC) He'd forgotten how much they cared about good manners in this world, allowing concerns of etiquette to overwhelm urgency and logic.
...When he lay in bed alone at night, he felt as if his body were missing its most important skin.
...When his father was home from the barracks, the two men passed food across the table in silence, slipped next to each other in the rooms of their home without so much as an acknowledgement, even their shadows barely crossing.
...For the rest of his life, he would only ever see glimpses of the two of them in the shapes they formed after an exit.
Two articles: one about BHT, the other by her.
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/12/111726...
https://lithub.com/meeting-language-a...
(One last aside: I am very cautious when I consider reading books set in the PRC and/or especially written by PRC authors. I find those titles to be both depressing (with no redeeming qualities) and flat. The latter quality I can justify since I read Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping. But the former issue, no matter what the cause or reason, is not something that works for me and I avoid such books. Here, I couldn't determine if Tang was PRC born and raised (she only describes herself as "from San Jose, California"). But from reading this title, I conclude that she spent a significant amount of time in the US and thus this read was acceptable in my eyes.)
Tang may be a debut author but this title does not read like a debut book. The writing is confident and strong. I felt well cared for as a reader. (And this came into question at times when various Romanized Chinese words occurred or Chinese characters appear: both with no translation and only opaque contextual clues. But I applaud such use of non-English words and non-Romanized script. It's a simple but profound way to make a point: it may be illegible to some but it is so. And it de-centers the Western gaze in a deep way. I think it takes a very secure and self-assured writer to do this.)
I note that the book depicted a very real bias (in PRC and in Asia in general) against people from the countryside or the village. And then we see how the country police chief presses for a bribe and how country people line up to visit Yitian when he first returns to his parents' home. These elements are accurately depicted by Tang and, for better or worse, explain why some of those biases are in place. There is also a prevalent class bias in this story. Much of the biases is embedded in the culture and belief systems, like Confucianism as well as, ironically, in Maoism. (Commentary: when I see references to "stop Asian hate" in the US, I often think about all the ways that Asians hate and some of the worst kind takes place in intragroup contexts.)
Tang discloses many truisms, some were painful or embarrassing to see in print. Her reveal is not cruel but matter of fact. I respect her credibility and truthfulness. Credibility? She has intimate knowledge and straddles both a PRC insider's view and an American perspective/sensibilities. (In one scene, she delicately depicts the distance and differences between a Taiwanese immigrant colleague and Yitian, an immigrant from PRC. They only speak to each other in English and any pretense of being racial brethen is awkwardly avoided.)
One more word about "credibility" -- while Tang does a lot of explaining in this book, it didn't feel like explaining (y'all know how I detest explaining). I tried to figure out why the various explanations felt organic but I couldn't discern how Tang managed to do so in such a smooth and unintrusive manner.
(As an aside, I'm not sure how Yitian's parents could have two sons during PRC's one-child policy/law. But Yishou, the older brother, plays an important role in the family dynamics/drama.)
A few quotes:
(In PRC) He'd forgotten how much they cared about good manners in this world, allowing concerns of etiquette to overwhelm urgency and logic.
...When he lay in bed alone at night, he felt as if his body were missing its most important skin.
...When his father was home from the barracks, the two men passed food across the table in silence, slipped next to each other in the rooms of their home without so much as an acknowledgement, even their shadows barely crossing.
...For the rest of his life, he would only ever see glimpses of the two of them in the shapes they formed after an exit.
Two articles: one about BHT, the other by her.
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/12/111726...
https://lithub.com/meeting-language-a...
(One last aside: I am very cautious when I consider reading books set in the PRC and/or especially written by PRC authors. I find those titles to be both depressing (with no redeeming qualities) and flat. The latter quality I can justify since I read Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping. But the former issue, no matter what the cause or reason, is not something that works for me and I avoid such books. Here, I couldn't determine if Tang was PRC born and raised (she only describes herself as "from San Jose, California"). But from reading this title, I conclude that she spent a significant amount of time in the US and thus this read was acceptable in my eyes.)
September 11, 2022
This was one of those winning chance meetings with a book that I picked up from the library's new novels section.
I loved being transported to China's rural provinces and big cities, with all their age old complexities and forced conformity. The story toggles between years, cities, and countries, but the chapter headings keep the plot line from feeling scattered or disconnected.
My favorite part was on page 243, where the protagonist is lecturing on topography: " If you could define what was absent, create a map for the missing, that was also a way of knowing a thing." As he connected emotions and relationships to math, I also connected his words to my story of missing pieces.
Profound, unfussy, beautifully written. My second favorite part was the ending.
I loved being transported to China's rural provinces and big cities, with all their age old complexities and forced conformity. The story toggles between years, cities, and countries, but the chapter headings keep the plot line from feeling scattered or disconnected.
My favorite part was on page 243, where the protagonist is lecturing on topography: " If you could define what was absent, create a map for the missing, that was also a way of knowing a thing." As he connected emotions and relationships to math, I also connected his words to my story of missing pieces.
Profound, unfussy, beautifully written. My second favorite part was the ending.
September 23, 2022
3.5 there was something missing for me in this book about missing. By the end I had it figured out…I was basically annoyed by the main character. I have trouble with people who are passive in their lives and there was something of that in Yitian. Others make his life possible while he seems to just accept whatever happens. His lack of boldness and his lack of decisive action made him very unsympathetic to me.
June 7, 2023
Absolute banger, wish i could read it again for the first time
July 27, 2024
As the story opens, Tang Yitian, living in the US, receives a call from his mother, in China, to tell him that his father is missing. Yitian returns to China to search for his father. The narrative flashes back to tell the story of Yitian’s coming-of-age. He and a local girl, Tian Hanwen, dream of going to college. Both of their lives are changed by the Cultural Revolution. The storyline moves between his early days, his pursuit of an education (which we know from the outset he eventually achieved), and his past – the story of his relationship with Hanwen, his family’s tragedy, and the factors that led to his father’s disappearance. He encounters Hanwen again, and she gets involved in the search for his father. I became fully engrossed in the story. It is well crafted and treats the movements in time with skill. Themes include guilt, grief, and forgiveness. It zooms in on a single family and zooms out to provide a more extensive understanding of the ongoing impact of China’s Cultural Revolution. It is an impressive debut.
June 6, 2024
Beautiful. Exquisitely placed. So good.
September 6, 2022
What a beautiful, moving novel that encompassed Chinese history, family relationships and forgiveness. This novel is set in China in the late 1970’s (before the Cultural Revolution) and in the 1990’s. The main character is a Chinese man (Yitian) who has emigrated to the US (where he is a math professor at a prestigious university in California). He is called back to rural China where he grew up because his father is missing. The story then shifts to rural China before the Cultural Revolution, where we see wonderfully drawn scenes from Yitian’s childhood. The difficulty of the labor, the lack of food, the lack of education, and the deep reliance on family are well portrayed. We meet Hanwen, a young woman from Shanghai who was “sent down” to Yitian’s village. I had read before about the program under which young students were “sent down” to the countryside to perform manual labor because they came from intellectual or out of favor families. To say the least, they were unprepared. Then, for the first time since the Communist Revolution, young people are offered the ability to take a university admissions exam – for which Yitian and Hanwen study together. Yitian passes and goes to college, but in the process a tragic separation occurs between him and his rural laborer father as well as his brother. We follow Yitian through university in China and his move to the US. Hanwen takes a different journey through life, which involves degrading jobs and a loveless marriage to evade a life of urban poverty. Again, the scenes are interesting and informative. Beneath it all, Yitian struggles deeply with his own self-identification as well as the loss of his family in his life. In the end, there is some reconciliation and forgiveness. The reader is left with a better understanding of life in China during the time period covered – but more importantly with the thought that no matter our social level, the life choices we make affect not just us, but our whole family, and understanding and forgiveness are priceless.
October 4, 2022
3 stars. This falls into the category of books that I think are good but I just could not get into. Not to borrow imagery from the novel, but reading it was kind of like taking a rural train ride where you alternate between "okay this is nice" and "I'm ready to be off this train". Ultimately, I think I wanted more emotion from the writing. Even scenes that were filled with intense feelings felt oddly detached. On a more positive note this did NOT read like a debut novel (in a good way!). The writing was very graceful and the story moved along well with the right pacing. If you are on the fence, I recommend giving this book a try. It was 3 stars for me but I can see how it would be 5 stars for others!
September 27, 2022
Knowing that those who hurt us carry their own sets of hurts that they, too, operate within. Oh to know and walk in forgiveness and the prison doors asking for forgiveness and the act forgiving unlocks. The Map of the Missing weaves the story of hurts and forgiveness and the ripple effect within a family so well.
May 15, 2022
In "A Map for the Missing", mathematics professor Yitian Tang receives an unexpected call from this mother in 1993; his father has mysteriously disappeared from their home in a rural village in Anhui, China. Even though Yitian has not spoken to his father in years, he agrees to return home to help. What follows is a story that traverses the present and Yitian's past, as we learn how he made his way as a farmer in China to his eventual position at an American university, and his eventual return to his homeland.
There is a lot of historical context needed to fully understand the weight of events in the 1970s, when Yitian is a teenager and China is moving past the death of Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution. Deng Xiaoping has taken leadership of the country, instituting his Boluan Fanzheng - policies that brought China closer to the modern world. Even though Yitian has grown up a commoner, a "countryboy", he dreams of taking the gaokao (高考), China's newly reinstituted national college entrance exam, a grueling, multi-day test that millions of other hopeful students will take in hopes of being accepted into one of the few slots. Yitian's father, however, is far from supportive and only praises his eldest son, Yishou, for his hard work in the fields. Nonetheless, Yitian is able to find solace and support in Hanwen, a girl from Shanghai who has been "sent down" to the village from Mao's earlier policies, and they both dream of what passing the gaokao can mean for them.
These events slowly bring us to the present, when Yitian returns to his hometown and is reunited with his mother and Hanwen. On the ongoing search for his father, we get to see the implications of Yitian's departure for America - how he's regarded by his neighbors and others in power, the assumptions made about him, and how his relationship with Hanwen has changed. It also paints an accurate picture of the country in the 1990s, with the pains of rapid growth and modernization, and the amount of corruption and bribery underlying these changes.
What I loved most about this novel, however, was how carefully and cohesively Belinda Huijian Tang is able to piece together a singular family in China, and the events that happened that led to their eventual falling out. The setting is firmly rooted in the events of the time, calling out the political and financial upheavals, the societal segregation, and struggles so many underwent. We get to see, piece by piece, the initial misunderstandings and differences in the Tang family, as well as the heartbreaking events that led to Yitian's eventual estrangement from his father. Yitian's efforts to pursue academics and move to America are representative of so many immigrant stories , and the ongoing racial inequity he faces in a new country hit home as well.
A word of caution: I have a hard time being completely objective about "A Map for the Missing" since there are so many elements in the novel that overlap with my own parents' stories and even my own, but it is nonetheless one of the best novels I've read this year that I devoured in less than a day. Very much a recommended read when this is published in August 2022!
Thank you Penguin Press for the advance copy of this novel!
There is a lot of historical context needed to fully understand the weight of events in the 1970s, when Yitian is a teenager and China is moving past the death of Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution. Deng Xiaoping has taken leadership of the country, instituting his Boluan Fanzheng - policies that brought China closer to the modern world. Even though Yitian has grown up a commoner, a "countryboy", he dreams of taking the gaokao (高考), China's newly reinstituted national college entrance exam, a grueling, multi-day test that millions of other hopeful students will take in hopes of being accepted into one of the few slots. Yitian's father, however, is far from supportive and only praises his eldest son, Yishou, for his hard work in the fields. Nonetheless, Yitian is able to find solace and support in Hanwen, a girl from Shanghai who has been "sent down" to the village from Mao's earlier policies, and they both dream of what passing the gaokao can mean for them.
These events slowly bring us to the present, when Yitian returns to his hometown and is reunited with his mother and Hanwen. On the ongoing search for his father, we get to see the implications of Yitian's departure for America - how he's regarded by his neighbors and others in power, the assumptions made about him, and how his relationship with Hanwen has changed. It also paints an accurate picture of the country in the 1990s, with the pains of rapid growth and modernization, and the amount of corruption and bribery underlying these changes.
What I loved most about this novel, however, was how carefully and cohesively Belinda Huijian Tang is able to piece together a singular family in China, and the events that happened that led to their eventual falling out. The setting is firmly rooted in the events of the time, calling out the political and financial upheavals, the societal segregation, and struggles so many underwent. We get to see, piece by piece, the initial misunderstandings and differences in the Tang family, as well as the heartbreaking events that led to Yitian's eventual estrangement from his father. Yitian's efforts to pursue academics and move to America are representative of so many immigrant stories , and the ongoing racial inequity he faces in a new country hit home as well.
A word of caution: I have a hard time being completely objective about "A Map for the Missing" since there are so many elements in the novel that overlap with my own parents' stories and even my own, but it is nonetheless one of the best novels I've read this year that I devoured in less than a day. Very much a recommended read when this is published in August 2022!
Thank you Penguin Press for the advance copy of this novel!
February 7, 2024
a quiet and tender read. depicted those unspoken moments between family members that communicate care in such a beautiful and realistic way- made me think of my mom and my Po Po :,)
September 21, 2022
2.5 stars
this will probably be the longest review i'll ever write. i was honestly really disappointed in this book since i was fully expecting a 4 to 5 start read. the thing that irked me the most was how simplistic the prose was yet convoluted at the same time. there were passages i would reread thinking i was tired or it was time to stop reading, but would then realize that it was just the phrasing that was convoluted. the only saving grace for me was the scene when yitian's mother was saying bye as he left for college-which made me tear up. the pacing of the book was strange as well-only adding to the simplistic writing-since the story would oscillate between past and present-normal for books focusing on memory-but the way it was handled in this book was incredibly jarring synonymous to someone forgetting their memories. this would be genius if that was the intention but reading other reviews makes me think otherwise... Tang would allude to past events without any explanation in order to be subtle, subsequently explaining the references later when you would have already forgotten by that point. this is seen through the heavy-handed depiction of yitian talking to his uncle who mentions that his father has dyslexia-to which he remembers that yishou mentioned the exact same phenomenon-and he realizes he learned of the disorder after living in america. other instances of this tactic aren't as heavy-handed, but that only makes this instance and the general usage of this technique that much more reproachable and tactless. it also seemed like the author completely forgot about mali in the middle of the book or whenever yitian was looking for his father, only bringing her back at the end. the romance kinda felt like himym when the show was pushing for robin as the love interest but would still hint that that was not the intended person for ted, leaving you frustrated and confused when they still don't end up together in the end. overall, disappointing...
this will probably be the longest review i'll ever write. i was honestly really disappointed in this book since i was fully expecting a 4 to 5 start read. the thing that irked me the most was how simplistic the prose was yet convoluted at the same time. there were passages i would reread thinking i was tired or it was time to stop reading, but would then realize that it was just the phrasing that was convoluted. the only saving grace for me was the scene when yitian's mother was saying bye as he left for college-which made me tear up. the pacing of the book was strange as well-only adding to the simplistic writing-since the story would oscillate between past and present-normal for books focusing on memory-but the way it was handled in this book was incredibly jarring synonymous to someone forgetting their memories. this would be genius if that was the intention but reading other reviews makes me think otherwise... Tang would allude to past events without any explanation in order to be subtle, subsequently explaining the references later when you would have already forgotten by that point. this is seen through the heavy-handed depiction of yitian talking to his uncle who mentions that his father has dyslexia-to which he remembers that yishou mentioned the exact same phenomenon-and he realizes he learned of the disorder after living in america. other instances of this tactic aren't as heavy-handed, but that only makes this instance and the general usage of this technique that much more reproachable and tactless. it also seemed like the author completely forgot about mali in the middle of the book or whenever yitian was looking for his father, only bringing her back at the end. the romance kinda felt like himym when the show was pushing for robin as the love interest but would still hint that that was not the intended person for ted, leaving you frustrated and confused when they still don't end up together in the end. overall, disappointing...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 4, 2022
There is much to like about this debut novel by Belinda Huijuan Tang - its lyricism, the plot, the fully realized characters, the depiction of China during and after the Cultural Revolution. There were some really lovely scenes where Tang just nailed it in terms of emotions, word choice, pacing, and impact. I loved the last chapter, but I was a little troubled by a few turns of events. It seemed that Yitian and his mother were accepting of his father's fate once they had the conversation with the bookshop owners. The revelation that his father wanted his forgiveness seemed to be a redemption for Yitian. and the news that his mother would soon be a grandmother seemed to propel her to now think about going to America to be with her son and forthcoming grandchild. It seemed that finding the father was no longer a thing. That they'd accepted his fate, that he had died alone out in the wild. But that wasn't apparent to me. Wouldn't they still be looking for him, not just feeling this weight lifted because it seems to me that finding or recovering his father is still the most important thing to do, especially now that there is forgiveness and redemption. I think, really, it just needed a few lines to state that, then I wouldn't have felt something important missing by the end. It's really the only thing that marred an otherwise really wonderful read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 10, 2022
3 stars. Beautiful writing. Predictable plot line: younger, less favored son seeks college education when Chinese regime finally offers exam for entrance. Young son disowned by father for taking exam and eventually becomes assistant professor of mathematics. Young son comes back to China to search for his missing father and reconnects with his first love. Cultural repression. Lack of personal freedoms. Life in small village.
November 16, 2022
It took me so long to read this that the ending felt anticlimactic but overall I enjoyed this read. 3.5 stars.
February 24, 2023
Rounding up to 3.5⭐️. To me this story was not so much about a missing man, but about the family he left behind. It was a bit of a slow read for me. The writing was good.
October 1, 2022
I enjoyed Belinda Huijuan Tang’s debut novel Map for the Missing on so many levels. The wonderful characters and the complicated choices the characters must make. The deeper revelation about life in China under the Cultural Revolution. Learning family secrets that alter one’s perception. The story has young love and loss, dreams fulfilled and acceptance of the life one has, and most powerful of all, it is a story of resilience and survival in a shifting political climate.
The Cultural Revolution in China turned lives upside down. Young girls from the city were sent to villages to work in the fields. A sent-down girl, Tian Hanwen, meets a peasant boy, Tang Yitian, who shares her love of books and dreams of an education. The unlikely pair form a deep bond. They study together, sure they will both be accepted into university.
The Yitian’s father angrily belittles him, for his own father was a denounced scholar, and without any manual skills is a mere drain on the household. The oldest son accepts that he will work the land but secretly helps his brother go to the city and take the tests for university. There, he contacts a disease that kills him. Their father cannot forgive Yitian for that death. When Yitian wins a coveted spot at university, he leaves home and does not return for fifteen years. He wins a scholarship to study in America for his PhD., taking along a wife.
Left behind is the girl he loved, his mentor and fellow in preparing for the exams. Hanwen did not win a coveted spot at university; she marries the assistant mayor and lives in luxury.
Yitian’s mother calls, franticly explaining that his father is missing. He returns to China to help. He sees the changes, the televisions in every house, but also encounters a corrupt and ineffective police system. He turns to Hanwen to see if her husband can help. They must contend with old feelings and choices.
With ever deepening layers to the story, we learn of Yitian’s mother’s strength and of his father and brother’s affliction.
Ultimately, Yitian must forgive himself and his father, and he and Hanwen come to terms with the lives they have.
This thoughtful novel will appeal to readers of historical fiction, women’s fiction, and family dramas.
I received a free book through First Look Book Club. My review is fair and unbiased.
The Cultural Revolution in China turned lives upside down. Young girls from the city were sent to villages to work in the fields. A sent-down girl, Tian Hanwen, meets a peasant boy, Tang Yitian, who shares her love of books and dreams of an education. The unlikely pair form a deep bond. They study together, sure they will both be accepted into university.
The Yitian’s father angrily belittles him, for his own father was a denounced scholar, and without any manual skills is a mere drain on the household. The oldest son accepts that he will work the land but secretly helps his brother go to the city and take the tests for university. There, he contacts a disease that kills him. Their father cannot forgive Yitian for that death. When Yitian wins a coveted spot at university, he leaves home and does not return for fifteen years. He wins a scholarship to study in America for his PhD., taking along a wife.
Left behind is the girl he loved, his mentor and fellow in preparing for the exams. Hanwen did not win a coveted spot at university; she marries the assistant mayor and lives in luxury.
Yitian’s mother calls, franticly explaining that his father is missing. He returns to China to help. He sees the changes, the televisions in every house, but also encounters a corrupt and ineffective police system. He turns to Hanwen to see if her husband can help. They must contend with old feelings and choices.
With ever deepening layers to the story, we learn of Yitian’s mother’s strength and of his father and brother’s affliction.
Ultimately, Yitian must forgive himself and his father, and he and Hanwen come to terms with the lives they have.
This thoughtful novel will appeal to readers of historical fiction, women’s fiction, and family dramas.
I received a free book through First Look Book Club. My review is fair and unbiased.
September 6, 2022
A Map for the Missing is a beautifully written story told from the perspectives of academic Tang Yitian and wealthy housewife Tian Hanwen. Once upon a time, they were teenaged sweethearts studying together so they could escape life in rural China. Years later, Yitian takes leave from his American university position after receiving some surprising family news, returns to his home country, and asks Hanwen to use her bureaucrat connections to help him find his missing father. The novel spans the late 1970s to early 1990s and gives an eye-opening look at city and country life in China after the Cultural Revolution.
This is one of those books that transports you to another time and place. Admittedly, the story is slow at times, and the relationships were somewhat underdeveloped—for example, I wanted to see more moments between Yitian and Hanwen to truly understand their connection and their longing for their somewhat unrequited love. But overall this is a captivating novel about the struggle between familial duty and personal growth as well as the individual’s search for a sense of belonging and home in a changing community.
This is one of those books that transports you to another time and place. Admittedly, the story is slow at times, and the relationships were somewhat underdeveloped—for example, I wanted to see more moments between Yitian and Hanwen to truly understand their connection and their longing for their somewhat unrequited love. But overall this is a captivating novel about the struggle between familial duty and personal growth as well as the individual’s search for a sense of belonging and home in a changing community.
April 5, 2024
I love it when an impulse grab at the library turns out to be a special book! A Map for the Missing is heartfelt, gentle in a way, slow, and quiet. None of the reveals are very shocking but they are meaningful and realistic. The last two chapters brought tears to my eyes. Usually books like this have a note of violence but this was rather peaceful in its way. A moving portrait of a family under the Cultural Revolution. It's a math novel, too! The blurb did not explain the delicacy of the novel and many of its major concerns (it's mostly set in the past) but it got me interested in the book and thus did its job.
January 13, 2024
4.5 stars for this incredible debut novel. I generally love any multigenerational story, and this is no exception. Explored themes of class, resentment, ambition, sacrifice, among others. Just a really solid novel.
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